


In Nomine: Storms

by Archangel_Beth



Category: In Nomine
Genre: Angst for everyone, F/M, behold the crackfic, crackfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 10:09:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12056766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archangel_Beth/pseuds/Archangel_Beth
Summary: Herein are the Stormsverse fics. The order of the chapters is the order they were written in.Essentially? Jean Falls. Nybbas gets an unpleasant visit from Lucifer. Angst and pain for everyone.(This one's for Sariel. Because we have so loved to torment poor Nybbas, haven't we?)





	1. Princes and Powers

* * *

Nybbas was in the middle of a dozen ringing phones -- and twice as many mental communications -- when the door chimed. "Oh, _later_ , babe," he moaned, and didn't have the attention to continue, _I've got too many **refugees** to handle! I can't take anything else!_

The door opened anyway, and he hadn't managed to turn around before a hand came onto his shoulder, familiar familiar, and a voice spoke, worse than familiar, in his ear. "Jean has Fallen."

Nybbas went to his knees, almost leaning into Lucifer. "I know, sir, I know. I'm handling the refugees, I'll give back the Servitors when..."

"I have made him the Prince of Storms, as he demands."

Nybbas startled a little. "Not... not Science, sir? I'd assumed... you'd want someone to cover, want him to take the place..."

"No. He will be the Prince of Storms. Perhaps Janus will join him."

"But... tech... If there's no Prince..." _What happens to me?_

The smile hung in the air above Nybbas' horns. He didn't have to look up to see it. He didn't want to look up, even though he couldn't figure out how to think what was happening or implied.

Lucifer put a hand on his shoulder again. "There is a Prince of Technology," he said.

And Nybbas felt his Word twist within him.


	2. The Prince is Dead; Long Live the Prince

* * *

Nybbas stood at the border of Perdition and Tartarus, and looked at the frothing waves, the whirlpools, the waterspouts. The roiling clouds which were never silent, never dark, with the rumbling thunder and lightning. Remnants of death-machines floated by, in pieces. Bodies, too -- souls so battered that they were about to dissipate, or meshwork frames of demons of Technology who'd been altered with Essence-constructs. A rag-tag entourage followed him. Camera-Impudite. Various refugees from Tartarus. None of them spoke.

In the end, Nybbas pulled bits and pieces from the waters and made a boat. He kept the camera-Impudite, and sent the others back to Perdition. Only his living wings could catch the gusting winds properly, and steer them around, and he spread them desperately, while spray spattered his glasses.

Buildings and chunks of buildings floated by. Some jutted out, rebar and crumbling concrete, and had to be steered around.

Nybbas wondered if it was the screaming of the wind in his ears, or the screaming of the damned and doomed experiments in those drowned basements.

But he leaned forward, gripping the sides of the boat, and brought them to the center, plunging blind through chaos at the last, and into deafening silence. The eye of the storm, calm and tranquil, despite the walls of wind and water that surrounded it. The very top... was into the blackness of Hell's ceiling.

An island stood in the center, all made of destroyed machines and laboratories. Now Nybbas flexed his exhausted wings and half-flew, dragging the boat with him. The camera-Impudite sobbed relief when the metal hull ground against the rock and metal of the island.

Nybbas didn't ask her to come with him as he stepped out. It was easier to walk and climb, and at the very top...

An androgyne, with hair that whipped about it even in the stillness. It half sat, half crouched on the topmost mass of rubble -- broken screens, Nybbas realized with a flinch. Television, video, LCD, CRT... All jumbled together in a sea wrack throne.

Coming up from behind, he couldn't tell what it stared down at.

He took an entirely needless breath, and called, "Prince Jean?"

The Habbalite turned its head, fast as wind or lightning. "I don't like that name."

Nybbas adapted. "Storms."

"Better." It turned its face away, to stare again.

Nybbas crept up, warily, until he could see...

A rubber-lined hollow in the island, and a Calabite bound in cables. It wasn't large, only about eight or nine Forces. Burn-marks spread all over it and it whined into its gag of wiring. Nybbas couldn't easily tell what its Discord was, it was so damaged. Some kind of phobia, perhaps.

"I need to talk to you, Storms," Nybbas said, more quietly. His voice jerked and stuttered, where it should have been smooth and charming. "You've got... people. And stuff. You're not using."

The newest Prince in Hell looked at the younger Hellborn one. Its irises swirled, like hurricanes into blackness. Conversationally, it said, "I bet you think I think I'm an angel, Media."

The use of his old Word twisted in him. "That's what... he..." _always said, and that he'd surpassed even that. Not mere angel, not mere Archangel, but transcended being of divinity._

"Technology," Storms hissed. "He gave you that, did he."

" _You_ didn't want it!" Nybbas shouted in sudden suicidal defiance.

The former Archangel threw its head back and laughed, hair swirling around its face. "Of course not, little fool. Why would I want what I destroyed? Do you know what that is?" It pointed.

Nybbas said, "A Calabite."

"Of Technology. The only Calabite of Technology."

"Vapula's Technology," Nybbas ground out. His people... They'd served him. He knew so well what Calabim did to delicate equipment ( _cameras, microphones, even megaphones_ ) -- and they'd served him. He couldn't cast them off now. He'd find... a way. Somehow.

Storms seemed unconcerned by the correction. "Granted. The only Calabite of Vapula."

Nybbas ran a hand through his hair. "So why'd th' Ol-- why'd Vapula have it?"

Storms giggled. "Because it's the Demon of Electricity. It has no vessel. It has no purpose save to exist. To drive my former self mad. Why do you think I chose now to attack Tartarus, child?"

He could only shake his head.

"Because Vapula's little pet was here. How could I live, slowly going mad like Gabriel? No. Not that weakness. Not when I could destroy him for his insolent temerity. Little whelp."

Not the time to remind it of Nybbas' history. "Yeah, but... this guy's not _dead_ , ba-- Storms."

"It doesn't matter now." That was flat. The next was a fey question. "Do you think I think I'm an angel?"

"I don't like guessing games." There'd been a cadence, once. Nybbas groped for an old pattern of speech that eluded him more often than not, now.

Storms tossed him something, and he caught it automatically. It was a ring, a mood-ring like Vapula'd given his Punishers. Nybbas shuddered when he realized it was blackened and cracked, but still working -- as a Prince's artifact should, even after that Prince's death.

"Put it on," the Habbalite said. "You'll see I don't care at all what you think."

Slowly, Nybbas did. And the ring swirled in confetti, broken information... "Kinda hard to _tell_ , babe." (There, that was the way he should talk. The way he'd talked for so long.)

"Babe?" Storms looked at him, and its form altered to female, all long legs and narrow hips and breasts that floated like islands themselves. "If you wish."

Nybbas swallowed again. Now was not the time to ask to do salvage work on what was under the waves, or the souls and demons who might survive. "I'll visit some other time. Let you do God's work..."

She laughed again, and the sky crackled and rumbled with her, the eye of the storm contracting suddenly so that gusts of wind teased at the island itself. "I'm _Fallen_ , Nybbas. I'm a _demon_."

Terrified, Nybbas went on automatic pilot of the mouth. "Does Lucifer know?"

"Does it matter?" Those hurricane eyes were sharp again. "Does he care if I am deluded or not? What love should I have for Heaven? They didn't stop me. They didn't help me. They didn't. Even. _Save_. Her."

Her wind-chapped hand rose, and clawed a bloody gash down her beautiful face. "You'll see. They'll never let you rest. They'll want things. Toys. Weapons. _Flying cars._ Things that will destroy the celestial realm if they ever get loose, and all of Earth and the humans, leaving nothing but soulless husks."

Nybbas twitched. "I won't let them," he hissed back.

"Poor little demon," she cooed, blood coming from the corner of her eye. She reached out the red-stained hand that had done it.

He took a step back.

"They're already coming, to try to serve me. Fallen Wind. Frightened Fire. Habbalah who think I'm as foolish as they are." The non-sequitur seemed to amuse her.

"Yeah, well... I'm not gonna tell 'em, ba-- Storms."

"You can if you want. Maybe they'll tell the Game." Her grin was not nice, not nice at all. "Maybe they'll tell the War. Maybe some Prince will come to try to destroy me, and I can see who else I can take down with me. That's the way a demon can serve God, after all."

_Cracked_ , he thought. _But in a really, **really** dangerous way._ Another breath, tasting of sea salt and copper blood. "I'll think about it. Now, see, y've got some people've mine..."

And now she was all serious again, blessit. "Yes, I do." She slid off her perch and walked to him, tall and clad only in tatters. Her arms went over his shoulders, her wrists crossed somewhere between his wings. "You know, I don't remember things well anymore. I may even forget, sometime, who you are. What you were, besides a little Impudite with bad clothing. Are you pretty, under the clothing?"

He wasn't stupid. He could feel the emotion-storms, and walled them away. With effort. "That's not important. Babe."

"It could be." Her face was wet, salt and blood. She leaned forward to whisper in his ear. "I might not attack you, Technology. You might buy my friendship."

Her breasts pressed against his collarbones. "I'm listening."

"Take this demon, this Demon, this Word-bound. Keep it safe. Put it on Earth. And make it run."

"But don't let the Game get it, right?"

Her lips brushed his ear. "Riiiiight. Clever boy. Clever Prince."

"An' you'll let me salvage the people and stuff I need?"

She shrugged. "All right. The Domain... is dangerous. But I won't target it on your people. Make submarines or something."

"Right." The Word whispered to him of how it might be done. He stepped backward again, and this time Storms let him go.

Carefully, he edged around to the rubber-lined hollow, and then within it. He bent down for the bound Calabite, and muttered, "Zap me and I'll beat you unconscious myself."

It stared at him with terrified eyes as he picked it up, and was limp in his arms.

"Go," the Prince(ss) of Storms said, her face like a rent mask. "The eye of the storms will not last much longer now."

"Thanks." Nybbas nodded, and went.

His camera-Impudite... was still in the boat. Still with the camera held up. She kept the focus on him, even though her eyes were clearly blurry with tears. She filmed as he set the bound Demon of Electricity in the boat, and as he tied all three of them to it with the cables. She filmed as he shoved off from the island. Filmed as he beat his wings, trying to build up enough speed to break through the eye's walls.

She filmed him the whole way back, and he wondered if the only way he would see his old Word again... would be through someone else's lens.


	3. Alliances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not Safe For Work chapter

* * *

Nybbas visits alone, the next time. He has his own submarine for this, that moves as he wills -- the cable connects him to it, brain for the body of Essence-constructed metal, so that he has wings and propellers, weapons, cameras that feed to his mind... But not directly, not through his Word. Only through the cable that his (new, devouring) Word has built.

The cameras catch a glimpse of something, and he deploys a side-lens from protected backup status to simple orienting.

A Habbalite -- not Storms itself, but apparently some Servitor -- with its legs stitched together into a tail, its ribs split open and fanning out in bloody gills. Its eyes are wide and staring. Its body is as bald and streamlined -- save for the gills -- as any Elohite's. The webbed claws on its hands hold something caged within them, and Nybbas deploys another camera for a better look.

A demonling, caught and struggling.

Nothing Nybbas needs to care about. He pulls the backup cameras back in, slides the covers over them, and continues through the turbulent waters.

The Prince of Storms is not below the waves. Nybbas has to rise up, carefully around the rubble, to the still-tiny island where the Habbalite stands with wind-whipped hair and watches the storms that rage around it.

This time, the "calm" of the storm is only enough for Nybbas to get himself out through the submarine's airlock, and send it a message to dive to a safer depth. He furls his wings, glad that the neural interface controls he has are covered over, and that he has not brought anything that might react badly with the far-too-corporeal-seeming Principality. Wind and rain lash at him, punishingly cold and blinding with the spray on his glasses.

He climbs, to where the Prince affects to ignore him (or maybe doesn't notice, in truth). It's slick, and sharp, and jagged. His hands and knees are bloody when he gets to the top, and one of his wing-struts is bruised where a lesser demon's would have broken.

"Technology," Storms says in acknowledgment 

"I don't like that name," he grumbles, carefully.

In mirror of their other meeting, the Habbalite says, "Nybbas."

He nods. "I did what you wanted. I thought you should know."

"Your people are already testing submarines. I have let them be. I have told my... minions. To let the submarines pass unharmed."

Nybbas nods, again. "Thanks, babe," his mouth says, still trying for the shreds of what he'd been. He has... trouble, doing it deliberately anymore. And the little habits fade.

Storms smiles a little, turning suddenly-her head to see him. Her face still has a bloody gash down it, that turns the beauty into something painful. Her skin and hair are white and water-wet. Her form is... leggy. Thin-hipped. Large breasts that deserve to be called proud. Her tattered clothes are only tatters by now, and conceal nothing.

She sways toward him in a tip-toe, barefoot dance that seems sure-footed, but he sees blood staining the rubble the island is made of, before waves and spray wash it from sight. He remembers the old version of the Little Mermaid, before Disney made it pretty, and her hand strokes up his arm and curls around his neck.

"Oh." She leans against him to look around. Her breasts press against his shoulder and chest, higher up than he'd like, but he doesn't try to shift his own form. Her fingers trace around the cover to the neural plug. "That's dangerous... No, not so dangerous. Not anymore. Not for some time."

She's probably the one doing it, just like the Old Man and his little Habbalah did -- take the emotions that are there, and spin them higher and stronger. But his chest feels tight, like there's a barbed chain around his heart, and his pants are so wet they're tight and he's aware of them, and him, and how close she is. How dangerous. How...

He only whispers it to himself, deep down. _...how sad._

But his hand rises to her bare hip, and she tilts her head and smiles a little, with the blood in thin wind-whipped streaks that don't quite touch her lips. His vision blurs, and he uses his other hand to reach up and pull his glasses off.

It doesn't help. The blur is somewhere else, and it's the easiest thing in the world to drop his head into the unreal bosom that's right there in front of him. Easiest thing to wrap his arms around her, his wings around them both, while she plays with his hair and the back of his neck.

She's the one who pulls them down, with his wings unfurling a little to be a tent around them, and she's the one who makes his clothes tatters with a Destroyer's resonance.

The rubble bites into his knees and hands, the edges of his wings. He doesn't want to think what it's doing to her back, but her face is serene. It's all he can notice, while emotions storm and rage inside him. **Need** and **Lust** and **Grief** , tangled with **Rage** and **Fear**.

It's more than his Word can drown out. (His old Word, oh, that would have held it all and then some. It's all fuel for the Media, babe, all fuel.) It tears apart the ordered madness of Technology, the _knowing_ , the way pieces fit together, the way things may be built. It tears down Technology in entropy and chaos.

Nybbas hasn't screamed in a climax since he was a little Impudite, toy of bigger demons. (And not often that, not often.) Not even for Andrealphus, or Lilith. But this one, this friction of Forces and invasion of Word -- he can't stop himself, for it's as much pain as the cutting bits of metal and stone beneath them. And as much a painful pleasure, drowning out the ( _hated, hated, feared and hated_ ) clatter of gears and hiss of electronics. Almost, he can pretend the rush of the wind is the static between the channels.


	4. Ninety Percent Desperation

* * *

Once, Nybbas walked through a door, to get away from the feeds when they drowned even his mind and tore at his self and soul.

He doesn't do that now. He doesn't want to be alone with his Word. The Door is nearly blocked, now, with the frameworks and cables that he's built to take the place of his old Word. He hangs in the construction, with the wires feeding into his form, under the skin, and connecting him to all the cameras in Perdition. (And a few, from deep-laid cables, to cameras in Tartarus beneath the waves.) His glasses are askew, but his eyes are closed and he watches anyone who comes to him through the room's cameras. Sometimes, he speaks to them through his own voice, and sometimes through the speakers.

The Old Man had found a time-travel theory. Nybbas likes it. If he can possibly get back in time, he can send assassins after Electricity (who runs on Earth, fast and far and quiet, because she thinks she's dead no matter who finds her -- and because it's running). He can tell Jean not to do it. He can tell Vapula it will be his death. He can tell his younger self what will happen.

Storms humors him in many, many things -- but not the calculations that he needs for this. She won't think of them. She says she forgets. She distracts him, pulling him down atop her until her back is a raw mess and he weeps into the sea-floating softness of her breasts. (His spies tell him that she (or he, or it) has told her Servitors to humor Technology's, because now everything that Vapula ever had is _hers_ \-- from Principality to Prince. He thinks she'd admit it if he asked.)

That's just a setback. The Old Man did things that no one thought he could, and Nybbas will blow up a thousand prototypes if that's what it takes to get one machine working. The Word of Technology whispers to him, and he plays old sci-fi movies where a camera can see.

He faces the knowledge, that in the end... the Lightbringer did not think he was worthy of the Media. That Technology was more necessary (not just a minor but important adjunct to Media). That the light which brings the darkness... didn't need Nybbas.

But if he can rewind the Symphony and record his own broadcast on it, he'll still have the Media. 

And it'll be enough.


	5. Whispering to the Wind

* * *

_The hurricane, one of the worst in decades, pushed toward land. Only an unusually strong jet stream held it back, but as it hovered over the ocean, it slowly gained power._

Winds spun off from the hurricane, somehow creating a relatively tiny waterspout in its fringes. More winds wrapped around it.

"You can't win," the wind howled. "I won't let you do this. You wouldn't have wanted me to let you do this."

The waterspout held a form within it, and the water hissed back, "It's a storm. It's not just _your_ Word anymore. Are you bothered that I can command what Oannes once held, too?"

"It doesn't matter. I won't let you do this. The longer I hold it off, the more they can evacuate."

"They'd just breed more, anyway. More and more, and their clever little monkey hands and monkey brains will try to make machines to control the wind and tame the storm. Except they'll be sabotaged, I think."

"You gave up that influence, _Storms_."

The waterspout's rush was eerie in its calm amid violence. "I still influence Nybbas."

"What does the Media have to do with that?"

"No one's leaked it? The Media is no more. Technology lives, his heir."

Many have cursed into the air, and the wind remembered every word of it.

Storms laughed. "Oh, he thinks much the same, really. Poor little child. He does what he must to survive, and does not care what I do to him."

"You bastard," the wind wept. No words were strong enough.

"I think I'm preferring bitch, actually," the waterspout's heart mused. "Did you know, I think Freedom's primarily heterosexual. Hardwired. Unsurprising."

"Do I _care_ about that? Come _back_ , Jean. There's still time! Your brains aren't mush, are they?"

Again, the laughter of the storm. "No, Janus. I can't come back. They found a weakness once. They'd do it again and I'm no Ofanite to be half-mad and angelic still."

Silence, in the rush of air. Background sound that seemed to be a long, long _noooooooooooooooooooo._

The waterspout thinned, and Storms' hair whipped about her body -- and scaled, finned tail. "I'm bored. Do whatever you want with the hurricane."

"Jean..."

The waterspout thinned to nothing, and the hurricane faltered in the face of the jet stream. Storms twisted her mer-vessel to head-down, in a perfect diver's position. **And yes, Janus, it bothers me a lot.**

She vanished beneath the waters.


	6. Falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _(A flashback.)_

* * *

It nagged at him. An itch. A glancing abrasion against his Word.

Nothing so direct as a Demon of Lightning, and certainly no Prince.

But something.

Itching.

Gnawing.

Scraping.

Finally, by the relief he found blasting a tree to splinters, he deduced there was a Calabite. But what Word?

Relief... in destruction. Destruction by pure application of his Word, in the corporeal, blunt, aspects.

Electricity.

Calabite. Demon. Electricity.

It was the work of months (hardly any time at all) to find the truth. The only Calabite of Technology, kept in secluded bunkers in Tartarus.

It was, clearly, specifically intended to attack him. To make him unstable, forced to expend more of his energies to compensate, or worse...

He listened in Council, watched as Soldekai managed the affairs of a mad Archangel, untamed wildFire. Watched as other Archangels viewed him with pity, or annoyance. He listened to how mad Khalid was spoken of, how those Servitors were dealt with, how Faith was marginalized. (And was not some of that his own considered response to Khalid's nigh-Outcasting of his own will?)

It was suboptimal to allow this persistent gnawing to continue. It was suboptimal to allow any to know of it, lest they believe him further gone than he was. It was suboptimal to conceal it, lest his advice become tainted and them all unaware.

Intolerable.

_Why have You given me this cross to bear?_

And there was clarity. A dreadful, horrible clarity.

He was losing, to Vapula.

He could not serve in Heaven, not like this. Not losing.

He did not laugh bitterly. He did not let tears spill from his gray eyes. But he took himself and his rawest power, and spilled down a Tether of Technology with the St. Elmo's Fire around him.

When he had destroyed his way through half Tartarus, and the Prince was before him -- he drew upon the link with his Word and the Calabite, and where the bite of Lightning could not fasten... the lash of entropy served.

_And amid the exultation... a single prayer that not all Habbalah were altogether wrong._


	7. Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I wanted to draw this out more, but when the characters hand me nicely angsty stuff like this... Remember, this is the Storms universe. Angst for everyone! Also knifeplay, sorta. Kinda.

* * *

"You're sure?"

The Archangel's breath stirs Nybbas' hair, even as his arms hold Nybbas up.

"M' at th' Tether, right?" he whispers, croaks. The Patent Office. Creation's, but used to serve Lightning. Now... Trade. Enough of a link to Tech, Nybbas had been able to get in, get the Seneschal to call the _right_ Mercurian, not the Walkabout one. _If he Fell, would **he** get the Media?_ Jealousy and fear chase through him at the thought.

"Shh. It'll be all right." Marc might read him through his shields, or might just feel how he tenses.

It's never going to be all right again, Nybbas doesn't say. But maybe it can be less wrong. So he nods.

He can't stand up, though. He's as weak in Marc's power as he gets with Storms. (And is he betraying her, running off like this? He's been her political advocate, as much as he can. But he thinks she feels sorry for him.) Marc lowers them both to the floor, and starts to slide Nybbas' glasses off.

They're not his old Glasses. They're just a pair of mirrorshades. Nybbas puts his hand up, catches Marc's by the wrist and holds him there a moment. "Slow," he whispers.

Marc complies, slow and careful, and hisses when he sees the camera array Nybbas has in his vessel's left eyesocket. "Nybbas... Take down your shields," he asks.

He tries. He fights them down, while Marc runs cool, distant fingers along his vessel's cheekbone and around the ear, and lays his hand over Nybbas' chest. It finally dawns on him that Marc is examining his vessel at the level of Forces and not just touch, finding the Tech implants of batteries and ear-communicator, microphones for subvocalization. The computer that's taking up the spare room in the skull, tied into the brain and nerves.

Finding that they're relics.

"Nybbas... I think we'll have to take these _out_ , before we..."

"S'not all VapuTech," he whispers back. "'S _Nyb_ Tech. Shouldn't blow up."

"Maybe not." Marc doesn't sound convinced. "But even so -- it's Hellmake. Hellmake... tends to go to pieces, in the Light."

Neither them says what they're both probably thinking, that Lightning could have found a way.

If Lightning were still an Archangel, Nybbas wouldn't need to be here.

Marc's hand passes down, past his ribs, and the Mercurian stretches to touch Nybbas' legs.

It's... oddly soothing. Knowing that his work is being found, examined, is a strange mix of pride and shame. Weapons, in one forearm and hand. Shielding in another. Relics for Essence and defensive shielding in his legs, flat along the bone. And the implant jacks, for cameras, at skull, studding down his spine, in his arms and legs and sides... all just beneath the skin.

"Why?" Marc asks, sounding almost as if it's his nerves that are tied to the constant static that only clears when the plugs are inserted.

"The cameras, first," Nybbas explains. "I couldn't see them... unless I had the cables. I was _blind_. The rest... just because." Because he used to be a Techpudite. Because the Word is a familiar one, and makes him want to build, and build, and build -- even as it eats out the core of him, trying to replace the irreplaceable.

"Nybbas... I'm sorry. I don't think I can keep you together, with all -- all this _stuff_ as well. I... _we_ need to take it out."

The thought, the very thought of going away, of ripping the implants out again that he worked so hard to put in, and then coming _back_... He can't. He can't do it. He knows that he would go to the jagged rocks of Storms, with his shields down and feet bloody, and try to pretend that it was... all right enough. He blinks his eye, with tears sliding out. "Don't make me go," he says, and it's a plea, not a Prince's order.

Marc strokes Nybbas' hair above his remaining eye, half to sooth and half -- Nybbas thinks -- to see what other relics he's embedded in himself. "Shh. No. I won't. I understand. We've worked too hard for this."

Touchy approaches. Touchy negotiations. A calculated betrayal of as many of his people as possible, for the promise that they'll be _captured_ , and held for him, alive. To give them the chance to follow their Prince into (exile) a second chance. To give him a chance to convince them. He'd nearly emptied Perdition, giving vessels to the demons worth anything.

He'd rigged the Heart-rooms. When his own power shattered, the deadman switch would go off, and there'd be no Hearts of Technology (or the Media) at all.

So he whispers, "It's a good vessel." He closes his remaining eye and leans his head against Marc's shoulder. The camera doesn't turn off -- he can't stand the blankness -- but he can blur the focus, dim the light.

And Marc hears what he doesn't say, whispers a prayer of his own so softly that all Nybbas can catch is the throaty _oh God_ \-- and slowly lays him down on the floor, where plastic sheeting now is that wasn't there before, and a plastic-covered pillow.

Nybbas' shields are down. And, when he thinks to look with the resonance of Habbalah (which he hates to use now, because it's so easy), so are Marc's, and it's a turmoil of anxiety and determination, with an overlay of something like grief and hope at the same time.

It's enough. He smiles a little. _That's_ enough, and Essence shimmers around them as Marc summons up nasty tools. But what the Archangel takes up first is a leather-and-rubber gag.

"You'll need something to bite down on," he says, and eases it into Nybbas' mouth. "You'll need to hold still."

Nybbas knows how to hold still. He was a Techpudite Servitor, small and available for experiments. But never with a superior (or Superior) who wept silently, and had to wipe his eyes before he picked up the scalpel. Marc's hands are gratifyingly steady, though, as he sets to work on Nybbas' near arm.

It doesn't make it hurt any less. Habit tries to strangle Nybbas' screams in his throat, until Marc's Song-spun voice comes into his mind. _**It's all right. I don't demand you be 'strong' for this.**_ After that... it wasn't clear, after a time, whether it was agony that made his throat raw and ears hurt, or something as mingled pain and pleasure as a Habbalite Princess for a lover.

Despite Songs of Healing, he's soon faint from losing blood and Essence (no, not easy to hold still with the cold edge of the blade slicing through skin and muscle and bone in places), and slick-wet with the blood around them. Through the blur of his camera, focus gone intermittent with pain, he can see that Marc's shirt and pants are soaked red, and there are streaks where he's wiped at his eyes. But still, those are steady hands that move his head into position to take out the implanted transmitter, microphone, receivers, and speakers he's put in his throat and ear.

He's prepared for blindness, and confused when Marc stops. Confused, for long moments, who he is even _with_ right now -- and that does not fade when Marc takes the gag from him and presses their lips together in something that somehow transcends both the platonic and sexual. "This... is all I can do on Earth."

Nybbas manages to nod. Marc takes his shoulders with red, wet hands, and _pulls_ , pulls him free of aching flesh. Marc's wings glow with the Tether-Light that's trying to shine through them, and his face looks sad and anxious and filled with fierce hope, tender pride.

"Yes," Nybbas says, though to what, he's nearly forgotten the words to. But it's nice, to have Marc looking at him with something besides hate and contempt. For that, and the hope of his Word back... he can do this. And as Marc's feathers fan out, letting the tearing scalpels of Tether-Light slice through, that's what he clings to -- shreds of hope, and an Archangel's worried smile.


	8. Turn by Turn

* * *

"He sent you."

Nybbas turns around, and stifles the instinctive flinch at seeing feathers as black as his are white. (And he doesn't think he likes his much, the way they fluff and flare to show his emotions; he tries to think of them as little antennae, each one picking up the Symphony that's his lost Soundtrack without the filters.) "I..."

The Malakite, in a tight gray jumpsuit that'd look nice on a human with her body, steps forward. "He sent you. He's not lost, not really. He sent you, made sure there'd not be a Technology to plague us."

He looks away, and tries not to see shadows in his own feathers, or the ebony reflecting in them. "She's... Storms, now."

"But he's not lost!" She holds him by the shoulders, unexpected, and he has to look at her grieving face. "He _sent_ you to us!"

"I'm not her replacement!" he says, nearly a shout. Bad enough that some of the Archangels murmured about that, before Marc rebuked them and asked if they wanted a yo-yo Prince instead of a redeemed one.

"No... But... She hasn't forgotten..."

"She's a _Habbalite_. She doesn't _want_ to remember! She _told_ me so."

A Malakite, flinching from a little Mercurian of barely-fledged Forces. It might make him laugh, later, when he can think past how much it all hurts. Desperately, the other angel cries, "Elohim lie too!"

The emotion in her voice... touches something unexpected. His fear and upset fade down to tired reflections of themselves, and he reaches up to take her wrists and gently pull her hands away. "Yeah... Yeah, babe, they do. And it's not like she'd have told me the truth, right?"

"Right." Her expression crumples, and a moment later, Nybbas has a sobbing Malakite in his arms. Which, when he thought about the whole redemption thing, was not even on the list of possibilities.

* * *

"So he's really gone."

Storms turns around, where she's been walking along the shore with the wind and waves beating their slow victory against the rock. "So it would seem," she says, neutrally. (She doesn't like being neutral, but Storms have their calms, too.)

Lilith pushes wind-tangled hair away from her face. "So now what will you do, for a political advocate?"

Storms shrugs. "I don't know. Malphas has come sidling."

"You know better than to trust him."

"Of course!" she snaps. "I'm insane, not stupid."

Lilith's eyes widen, just a little, but then she slides back to her original script. "I've always liked storms, you know. They're so... wild. Untamed."

She laughs at the other Princess, and states, "Storms are created by physical laws of motion and heat, of air and water, and are as predictable as mathematics if you know where every piece is. Just because _humans_ can't understand them doesn't mean they don't follow _rules_."

The shock is masked quickly, and Freedom's eyes narrow. "You'll be doing your own politicking, then?"

Storms shrugs again. "I don't really care. You can do it, if you want. I'll give you the shoreline here."

"I have Shal-Mari."

"With Impudites all 'round to keep you alive. On the other hand... I would leave you free."

That look is a mask of assessment, and nothing else shows atop it, or -- with her shields -- below. The lack of perceptiveness is annoying, but Storms supposes that it is a veiled kindness; feeling too much, in Hell, would tear her heart even more than the jagged debris tear her feet and back.

* * *

The wind howls, and glass shatters on the deserted, evacuated street. They turn around (one flinching and nervous, the other mildly curious) and see each other.

He's taller, leaner, darker-haired. She's naked and pale as a drowned corpse, leaving bloody footprints. He has a press-ID clipped to his jacket. She has all the wounds she has taken since she became a Princess.

She is unmistakable. And she knows him, from the way his eyes dilate and his emotions churn.

She walks toward him. "Nybbas."

"Storms." His voice has fear and sorrow in it.

"That last helicopter. You stayed, so someone else could leave, didn't you. And now you're looking for more people, to try to get them to safer ground."

Only she could hear his whispered _yeah_ over the roar of wind and rain.

"Are you still mine?" she asks, when she is close enough to reach out and trace the lines of his face. (Trace the paths where wires and implants had once broken the lines of his Forces.)

Those are tears, from storms of emotion, on his face. "Jean..."

She pulls his hair a little, and the wind screams louder. "No."

"Storms. Sorry."

"Yes," she sighs. "You might be."

She's still a little taller than he is, in vessels. She bends enough, and kisses him.

He kisses back, after a moment, and they taste of salt together.

After she leaves, he moves through the drowning city in a freak cell of calm, and rescues a half-dozen humans. Carrying them to safety makes him a hero in the eyes of the media.

He doesn't walk back into the storm.


End file.
